Amaranthine
by Isilien Elenihin
Summary: A Warehouse 13 AU. For the first nineteen years of Rose Tyler's life nothing happened-until she met the Doctor, an agent for a mysterious organization known only as the Warehouse. When she was nineteen years old Rose Tyler's life changed forever.
1. Nine

They have been on two adventures already and haven't even made it to the Warehouse yet, but then he knew she was jeopardy friendly the moment he found her cornered in the basement of a department store, yelling for someone named 'Derrick' like the whole thing was some student prank. Unbidden, a smile deepens the slight creases around his eyes and mouth.

"What's so funny, then?" Rose asks from his right. She's asleep on her feet, practically. Eleven at night in the UK is four in the afternoon in South Dakota and they have been running for three days straight from adventure to adventure. He is used to it and needs little sleep anyway. Rose, he is learning, enjoys sleeping and the jet lag is catching up to her.

This body is full of strange dichotomies. It's relatively new, so much so that he hadn't had a chance to actually catalogue his new appearance until he ducked into the ensuite in her flat, hiding from her mum. If he never has to see Jackie Tyler again it'll be too soon. Things like meeting mums and staying for tea and making small talk, _domestic_ things, fairly give him hives—but other things, like the way she curled into him on the plane and fell asleep with her head pillowed on his shoulder and the side of her left leg against the side of his right, the way she's leaning into him now, the way her fingers are loosely threaded through his own—those feel wonderful.

"You are," he tells her flippantly, because it's the truth and he thinks it will get a rise out of her.

He's right.

"Ha bloody ha," she grumbles and covers a yawn with her sleeve. "Not all of us are insomniacs, you know." He opens his mouth to correct her (he's not an insomniac; he will sleep when he's dead), but a sleek black car pulls up to the curb and instead he tugs her forward. It's time to go home.

* * *

"So, what is this place?" she asks after the car drops them in the exact middle of nowhere. Well, not _technically_, they're about seven miles from a town called Univille by the locals, as it is an unnamed unicorporated settlement, but it must look like the middle of nowhere to a girl who was born and raised in London. A dirt road curves around to their right and he swings their joined hands.

"The road to Endless Wonder," he says with a grin.

Rose blinks at him. "You can't be serious."

"Oi!" he protests. "I'm hurt. Truly."

She rolls her eyes but when he starts walking she keeps step next to him. The sun hovers just above the horizon and the temperature has thankfully dropped to something a bit more manageable. Still, they're both sweating by the time they reach the huge, rust-stained steel building that is their destination. His pickup truck, battered and blue and unassuming, is tiny by comparison.

"Oh." He lets go of her hand long enough to reach into one of his jacket pockets and pull out a small silver key. "Almost forgot—you'll need this."

She quirks an eyebrow at him and takes it. "What is it, then?"

"Endless wonder's got a front door." He smirks. "And that's the key."

The corners of her mouth creep up and her tongue makes an appearance, caught between her teeth as she grins at him. "You think you're so impressive."

He leans in close and doesn't miss the way she goes so still, the way she shudders when his breath hits her ear. "I _am_ so impressive."

When he pulls back just far enough to look in her eyes she gives him a hard, searching look. Rose Tyler is young, yes, innocent of the world's ugliness, to a large degree, but naïve? Never, and she is no one's fool.

"Prove it," she orders, and his answer smile is dazzling.

The Doctor places one hand on a piece of the wall that looks like every other piece (but isn't, of course) and slides his own key into the tiny hole that appears beneath his hand. The door swings open. "Rose Tyler," he says as she follows him in. "Welcome to Warehouse 13."

* * *

The Warehouse is immense, ten times larger than it looks from the outside, easily, but that's the thing about artifacts: nothing is what it seems to be. He's not what he seems to be either, but she figured that out ages ago. The tour and mandatory 'touch nothing' lecture are out of the way and she's got a brand-new pet ferret thanks to a kettle that grants wishes and a wish that can't be granted. He wants to ask what it was but the heartbreak on her face warns him away. They have known each other for fifty-seven hours and almost died three times already but for all that she _feels_ like someone he's known forever they are not intimate, not yet. Doris manages to find a cage for the ferret somewhere (Rose names him Pete and the heartbreak is back, just for a moment) and sets it up in Rose's room while the Doctor makes tea.

She accepts the mug with a grateful smile and a "Ta, thanks,"—it's been a long day—and for a few minutes they drink their tea in silence. He's just snagged a biscuit when she finally speaks.

"The most dangerous place on the planet, you said, and you're just gonna give me the key." There's disbelief in her voice and a little bit of awe, and she studies him like he's something strange and wonderful, like he's some sort of puzzle that she can't quite work out.

"Might do, yeah." He takes another biscuit and gives her a look like she's being especially slow.

"What if I lose it? What if someone else takes it from me?"

The Doctor knew Rose was clever before, just like he knew she was brave when she figured out where Nestene was hiding Marie Tussaud's sculpting tools. It's been so long since he's had someone to ask questions that he very nearly forgot how much he enjoys answering them. He is an Agent, yes, and everything that the job requires him to be, but he will always be a teacher, first and foremost.

"That's the beauty of the Warehouse; it operates on the principal of synecdoche."

Amusement curls her lips into a smile. "What's that when it's at home?"

"Synecdoche," he reiterates, "was originally a term applied to literature. It's when you refer to a bit of something but you mean the whole thing—like 'all hands on deck' or 'get your arse out the door.' You don't actually mean just the hands or just the arse; you mean the whole person."

Rose rolls her eyes. "Yes, Doctor, thanks for the lecture, but could you get to the point?"

"Patience," he chides her. "The point is that the Warehouse is the same way. It's not just a building; it's alive, and it recognizes bits of itself. It's your key, and it will work for you as long as you live, and only you."

* * *

He should have kept his mouth shut.

Three weeks later she's one of the best agents he's ever had, one of the best friends he's ever had (and maybe more), and he's locked her in with his worst enemy. He thought they were gone; they were supposed to be gone, supposed to be dead, but now Rose Tyler is trapped in a bunker with a Dalek. His heart is pounding and there's a muscle twitching in his cheek and if he gave a _damn_ about Van Statten—the miserable collector who brought him here—the Doctor would tone down the rage a little bit…but he doesn't. Because the Daleks, the most dangerous group of people he has ever encountered, are supposed to be dead.

Because he killed them. He killed them all.

That was supposed to balance out the fact that he sacrificed his entire team to do so. It was cold comfort, but Romana's death, Ace's death, the Corsair's, the destruction of Gallifrey, the town he called home (when his family wasn't busy disowning him, that is)—it was supposed to _mean_ something. But it doesn't, because one Dalek survived, and one Dalek is all it takes to destroy everything he has worked for, maybe even the world.

It's worse too, because this Dalek has nothing to lose. He has no other name, not anymore, just the name his people took as their own, because individuals don't matter to the Daleks. They're as close to a cult as you can get and that alone would make them a force to be reckoned with; fanatical devotion has inspired some of the greatest atrocities in the history of humanity, but the Daleks know about artifacts, what they are and how to find them. This makes them exponentially more dangerous. And this Dalek, this sole survivor of the war that claimed everything the Doctor loved, he has no superior, no tactics, nothing but the need for revenge.

"Rose, you have to run." He can hear the desperation in his voice and he knows that she can too.

"No good, Doctor." She's stopped moving. _Why has she stopped moving?_ He can hear her breathe through the Farnsworth but the only thing he can see is the top of her shoes. The image blurs and now he's looking at her face. Her lip trembles, just a bit, and there are tears tracking down her cheeks.

"What are you doing? Rose, _run_!"

"The stairwell's gone." She flips the Farnsworth around so he can see, and she's right—it's a pile of rubble. "I just—I want you to know that it's not your fault." Her lip trembles again and she bites it. He can't catch his breath. "None of this. It was my choice to come with you and I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

"What are you doing?" he demands.

She's got the Tesla out and he watches as she switches the dial to the highest setting. "As long as I live, you said." She pulls a thin silver chain out from under her shirt and there, nestled between her breasts, is the key to the Warehouse. "He can use me against you, Doctor. He can use me to get into the Warehouse." She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes for a moment, schooling her face into serenity. "That's not going to happen."

Nineteen years old, and she's going to kill herself to save the world. It might be her hand that pulls the trigger, but he'll have killed her all the same.

* * *

He'll never know how she managed to persuade a Dalek to remember his name, to remember who he was before, but he'll never underestimate her again. He thought she was dead, still can hardly believe that he's not hallucinating when she staggers into the room, covered with dust and smudged with dirt from her climb through the rubble and out into the bunker proper. It's only when her arms close around his shoulders, when he buries his head in the curve of her shoulder and breathes her in that reality hits him. She is here. She is alive.

Someone is laughing and someone is crying and he thinks it might be him. Her hands move from his shoulders to his hair and then she's kissing him and he knows they must be making a scene but he doesn't care. She is Lazarus, back from the dead, but it's him who is alive again.


	2. Rose

"Do you understand now?" He's kneeling in front of her, disconcerting brown eyes wide and earnest, his hands on her knees. Rose's gaze slides away from his face; it's too weird, looking at him, seeing different eyes than the ones she has come to love. But the Warehouse sings inside her, calm and joyous and certain and it's impossible to be afraid—after everything she's seen, after everything they've done.

"I'm the same man," he continues. "Always, Rose. I'm the same man. Just—the packaging changes a bit." A wry smile pulls the corners of his mouth up. "That's your fault, by the way." She doesn't answer but the incredulous look she gives him turns his smile into a full-blown grin. "I saw the way you looked at Jack and even that Adam bloke, and really, Rose—you could do so much better. But you like them foxy and I want to be able to touch you without getting slapped by some woman like your mum. Ergo—" One hand lifts from her knee and makes a gesture encompassing this new man, this new Doctor.

One thing hasn't changed; the Doctor isn't good with silence. He runs a hand through his hair—actual _hair_ longer than the just-barely-beyond-a-soldier's-buzz that he had worn and everything is so incongruous that Rose is half-expecting her mum to burst through the door demanding an explanation—and rocks back a bit on the balls of his feet. "Rose." It's a plea and a command. "Say something. Please. I—I'm sorry that I frightened you, but I'm not sorry that it happened. And I'd do it again, in a heartbeat. You would have died, Rose, and between you and me—there's never a choice. Not ever."

It's as close to a declaration as she's likely to get. She knows, oh, she's always known and she desperately wants to respond in kind but her thoughts are moving faster than she could possibly say. In the end Rose lets her hands do the talking. She reaches up tentatively and lays her palm along his cheek. She absolutely does not note the way his eyes close and his head tilts subtlety into the contact, or the way he sighs when her other hand frames his other cheek, or the way his hands wrap around her wrists to hold them in place when he opens his eyes and finds her studying him with silent, intense certainty.

"Rose." Her name rolls of his lips like it always has, like it's something precious and _she_ is something precious and it's involuntary, really, the way she closes the gap between them and silences whatever was to follow with a kiss. The song of the Warehouse swells in her head and he surges up to meet her, all of his hesitation gone in the face of her acceptance.

"Hello," Rose says when the need for oxygen asserts itself.

"Hello," the Doctor replies. His smile is different but the same effervescent joy radiates out from it and his eyes are different but the same love lurks within them. And she is different now too, bound to the Warehouse in ways that not even the Regents can fully explain or even understand, but at the heart of all things they remain who they always have been—the Doctor and Rose Tyler. And that is as it should be.


End file.
